In Vino Veritas
by x4ashes4ashes
Summary: About a decade after high school, an estranged Ryan and Sharpay meet up on Christmas Eve. Ryan/Sharpay-Rypay  Disclaimer: I own nothing


Summary: About a decade after high school, an estranged Ryan and Sharpay meet up on Christmas Eve. Ryan/Sharpay-Rypay

Disclaimer: I own nothing

/

She'd made it, of course.

He had never doubted that she would. She had star power; it shined in her. It couldn't be extinguished, or hidden, or denied. It was who she was. And it didn't hurt that she wasn't the type of person you could keep down. She knew how to bop to the top. She knew how to go after what she wanted.

She didn't need to study at Juilliard in order to be good enough to do shows in New York, or anywhere else for that matter. Anywhere in the world. What she lacked in formal training she made up for in natural talent and gravitas. For she _was_ talented. And beautiful. And magnetic. She may have spent all of high school forcing stardom, scratching her way, but she had been born a star. He'd always recognized that.

And it wasn't like she hadn't studied - she had, all her life. And more recently, at a very prestigious school that just happened to _not_ be Julliard. After all: who said Juilliard was the beginning and the end of learning the performing arts? Just because it was the most famous school and the hardest to get in to didn't mean that it was the best: those statistics said nothing about the students who graduated from there. And passion and what couldn't be taught were worth ten times what could be.

He'd always thought she had three personas: the girl she was in the safety of her own home with her loving family, the queen bitch/ice princess she had always been in the public eye, and then the goddess she was on stage and in front of the camera. They seemed like different people, but they were just facets of a very complex personality. She was never as simple as people made her out to be. It had been easier to classify her than understand her. The scope of their vision and understanding had never been large enough to comprehend her.

After the deaths of their parents, the first Sharpay – his favorite Sharpay – had more or less disappeared. Or at least he assumed so, because he hadn't seen her in five years. Not in person. He'd seen the ads in magazines and on billboards and the sides of buses. They plastered her face everywhere when she had a new show. She hadn't exactly gone supernova, but in this town she was almost a household name from the publicity alone.

Well, no, it wasn't exactly true that he hadn't seen her in person. Because he'd gone to _every_ one of her productions – most of them _at least_ twice. (Even the ones she had done in Los Angeles…and London…and Sydney…etc. He had missed a lot of work flying back and forth.) So he _had_ seen her in person, technically. But still, it wasn't an interaction. It wasn't even an _echo_ of the purest intimacy they used to share.

He never got a front row seat: he didn't want to risk her seeing him.

He sent her anonymous flowers every opening night, even if he wasn't there for the show.

Pink roses.

The girl liked pink.

He'd even gone to the show she had done in Buenos Aires. He took Kelsi with him: a vacation. He went for a walk after an early dinner (especially for that town), and didn't come back until after midnight. Kelsi was smart (enough): she'd probably figured out where he'd been. She didn't hold it against him - the fact that he didn't tell her where he'd been, didn't take her with him. She didn't ask because she was afraid. Afraid of confrontation. Afraid of memories. Afraid of unconscious parts of him, and of waking them up.

It might have seemed remarkable that they could both be in the Business, both live in New York, and never see each other. But New York was a busy city. A big city. It was easy for both of them to live there, for both of them to travel in more or less the same circles, and never see each other. All he had to do was turn down a party here, and an offer there.

And sit in the shadows.

He was afraid too…

It helped that she liked to do projects around the world, and travel. She was a jet setter, just like she'd dreamed. One city wasn't big enough to hold her. He was one too, but not by choice. He was one because she was one. He would have chosen it, but he hadn't

He was doing mostly choreography these days. He still performed, but it didn't hold the same magic for him that it used to. There was something that he just wasn't getting out of it anymore.

Something was missing.

He could fake the smile…that wasn't a problem. But it bothered him that the smile had to be fake. It was never genuine, not like it used to be, when he loved to dance and sing. Even though now he could do all of the jazz squares that he wanted to.

He suspected that part of it was the fact that there was no one driving him relentlessly towards perfection. There was never anyone watching whom he wanted to impress.

His friends and colleagues attributed his listlessness to Kelsi; they forgot that it had been there for as long as they had known him. When Kelsi had been diagnosed with cancer they never imagined that she wouldn't make it: she was so young, so sweet. But the disease had killed her before they had even gotten used to the idea that she was sick.

She hadn't fought, and that was his fault. That's what he feared, anyway. The guilt he felt was only slightly mitigated by his memories of her last few months, when they had been closer than they had ever been, and when she had composed some of her best work. She went out like a thorn bird. He missed her.

But the truth was, as serious of a relationship as he and Kelsi had been in, he still hadn't been sure whether he wanted to marry her or not. She must have expected a proposal: they'd been together for nearly eight years. Their professional relationship, however, had been the one that was golden. Their complacent companionship, on the other hand, had not been true love. Even Kelsi - who had loved him more than he had loved her, he was sure - knew that they might have lived a happy life together, but that it would have lacked passion sooner rather than later. What little passion it had then had been largely supplied by her, and after a while that wore a person down. Maybe she'd already been worn down.

Fate had taken the matter out of their hands.

He mourned a friend, and a great composer, but not a lover.

Sharpay had sent flowers. No card. No call.

That was two years ago.

No, it wasn't the loss of Kelsi that had turned him into his now sadder-but-wiser self. He had a number of reasons to shake his fist at the sky, but that wasn't one of them. Actually, he felt a little guilty that he didn't miss her more. Because he knew what it was like to truly miss someone, to miss them from your toes, from the pit of your stomach, from the deepest, darkest corners of your heart.

To ache for them.

He kept busy. But he was in between projects at the moment, and it was a holiday. Christmas. The happiest time for those surrounded by loved ones, and the loneliest time for those without them. He never let anyone very close. Christmas wasn't just a day off for having fun, it was a day for being with those you were close. He had friends he could've been with, but he knew from experience that it would have felt cheap. False. At least here, in the dark, alone, and a little drunk, it was real, and he wasn't lying to himself.

He still had the apartment he had shared with Kelsi. Between his inheritance and the income from his work (he was doing very well), he could afford a much nicer place, but he didn't really care enough to move. A few months after Kelsi was gone, he'd hired someone to redecorate. Kelsi had styled the place herself, and it made Ryan miss her to look at it. Not to mention the fact that he'd never really liked her interior design, which in turn only reminded him of how guilty he felt about their entire relationship.

The apartment was high enough to have a decent view. It wasn't much during the day, but at night, all you saw were lights. He was seated by the window, reclined in a chair that he was now realizing wasn't very comfortable, clasping a glass of hard liquor. He usually drank wine – because that's what was done – but he hadn't wanted wine this time.

He was finding it difficult not to be introspective. And retrospective.

He thought he should turn on the TV, but he couldn't seem to get up. He searched the apartment desperately for distractions, his eyes alighting on a book shelf full of books he'd never read. The most salient objects were his high school yearbooks.

He shuddered and looked away. Then he took another drink.

The last time he'd flipped through his yearbooks – about a month ago, he was ashamed to say – it had ended the same way it always did. He would read the entry about the Evans twins – the "Dynamic Duo" – from their junior year:

_They put their singing talents to great use and as you can see, it worked. The set was lit up not only by disco balls and shimmering streamers, but by the presence of great people and their great voices. _

"_Practice makes perfect, and we were willing to work exceptionally hard and make our production perfect," said Ryan Evans. "It's so much fun because we love to do it, and working alongside my brother makes it much more fun," added Sharpay Evans._

And then he would scoff, and call his sister a lying bitch. If working alongside him had been as much fun as she claimed, then they'd still be working together. And what ever happened to "Imagine first audition after college I get the lead" –"A part for me?"  
>- "Well of course, you gotta believe it"?<p>

Well, one thing she had said in high school was true: her mantra – "I want it all." Well, she had it. The fame and the fortune and more.

He'd been the one to go to Juilliard. He'd been the one who stood his moral ground. He'd been the one who found a nice girl and loved her the best that he could. Why did he feel so empty while Sharpay had gotten everything that she had ever wanted?

And there it was, the answer, in the back of his mind. A nagging thought. He'd done everything right except for one thing…

And this one thing, well, it might have been more important than everything else. Instead of wondering why Sharpay wasn't being punished, maybe he should have asked himself why he had been.

/

There was a shoe box in his closet full of playbills, magazine and newspaper cuttings, and posters ripped from walls. Enough for a shrine to her. He'd kept them hidden from Kelsi when she was still alive. They were still buried, somewhat. He had refrained from hanging them up, but not from looking at them. Some of the older ones were yellowing. Others were worn and bent from his constant need to finger through them.

And that's when it came out. His genuine smile. It pleased him to see her doing so well. He was proud, in spite of everything. He wasn't jealous, not of her. A little resentful, maybe, but after enough yoga he could push that away. It wasn't her life that troubled him, it was his own. When he took time to really think about it, he realized that. He could resent her all he wanted, but what he really resented was the fact that she wasn't in his life anymore. And he could blame that on her all he wanted - and he _really_ wanted to – but if he weren't such a coward, maybe his life would look radically different.

He was afraid of what he wouldn't see in her eyes. Of what he wouldn't feel in her arms when they greeted each other with an awkward hug.

And he was afraid that if he drank anymore, he'd either go get that shoebox, or crack open one of those yearbooks, and he really didn't want to do either one of those things.

He threw his head back and looked at the ceiling. He could have screamed.

He used to like Christmas, but now he hated it.

He was man enough not to say it out loud, curling up on his floor in the fetal position, but he wanted his mother. She had a way of making all of his problems seem insignificant. And a way of reminding him that in some small way, he and Sharpay would always belong to each other.

He dropped the glass in surprise when his door opened and his apartment was flooded with light. It hit the hard wood floor with a thump, but didn't break.

All he saw was a silhouette against the backlight, but he didn't need to see more to know that it was Sharpay. She was wearing an evening gown, with a fur thrown over her shoulders. Two men stood behind her, one carrying luggage, and the other holding a key.

She gasped, hearing the thud. "Ryan?"

She didn't wait for him to answer, instead directing the bellhop: "Right there," she said cheerfully to the man with the luggage, pointing into the corner of Ryan's main room. Her bags were placed there, and the two men had slipped away before Ryan had managed to sit up and get ahold of his senses.

"Sharpay?" he asked, blinking, his eyes still adjusting.

"You don't recognize your own twin sister?" she asked with an insincere laugh. She switched on the lights and closed the door behind her. "It was dark in here: I didn't think you were home."

Of course he recognized her. He recognized her shadow, her silhouette, her gait, the cascading of her hair, her scent, the sound of her breathing, the bending of space and time and dimensionality around her very presence… "How did you get in?"

"You did see the guy with the key, right?"

"Yeah, Arturo. I'm glad to see the building's so secure."

"Arty's a dear. I'm Sharpay Evans, Ryan! How much trouble do you really think I had? Besides, everyone knows I'm your sister. Although, I don't know about you, but I think my friends are beginning to suspect we're actually divorced."

She was still in the shadows. She was hiding back there.

"What are you doing here, Sharpay?"

"Is that any way to greet me? It's Christmas Eve, Ry." She laughed again, and it sounded just as fake this time. Taking graceful steps in her mountain-high heels, she flowed dramatically into the overhead illumination. The light dusting of make-up on her face was refreshing after seeing her so dramatically done-up on stage. She looked natural, and real. So beautifully private.

"_Christmas Eve_? Sharpay, I haven't seen you in five years!"

"We both know that's not true," she said with a knowing look, before spinning around to take in the apartment. "It's nice," she offered, lightly masking her disapproval. "I don't see any decorations. How sad."

"I'm not home much."

She raised her eyebrows: she thought that might be a lie. "And yet you're home tonight, on Christmas Eve. Alone."

"I'm not alone: you're here."

She smiled. "But you would have been."

"And you?" Ryan pointed out. "You're alone."

"I'm not alone: I'm here. With you."

"_Why_ are you here, Sharpay?"

She bit her bottom lip. "I already said: It's Christmas Eve. I want to spend it with my family."

Ryan finally stood and headed for his kitchen. She moved forward to hug him, only to realize that he was fetching a paper towel to clean up his spilt liquor. She backed up casually, fidgeting behind her. "And why this Christmas Eve, and not last year, or the year before, or the year before that, or the -"

"It's alright if I stay, isn't it?" she interrupted, pointing at her bags. "Good," she replied to the response he hadn't spoken. "Do you have a guest bedroom? I'd like to change; I've come from a party."

Ryan laughed incredulously, and then shrugged and pointed out the extra bedroom.

"Grab my stuff, will you?" she entreated, strolling towards the door he had indicated.

He was still so shocked that he did as she had said, dropping off her luggage next to the bed in the guest room.

"Pour me a drink," Sharpay requested with a smile as she shut the door on him.

"Success agrees with you," he said with perhaps too much admiration, handing her a glass of wine. He'd switched over himself. Kelsi had bought these glasses: they were a little funky for his taste. He turned on one of the Christmas music channels and adjusted the volume to allow for their discourse.

Sharpay had changed into a simpler long-sleeve black dress. She accepted the wine and took a quick sip.

"Well you look terrible," she responded, settling in opposite the counter from him. She had left her hair down; the long, blonde curls reached all the way down to the counter top as she leaned, effortlessly glamorous, against it.

"Thanks, Shar (!)"

"You look older…"

"I'm the same age as you…and far too young to be troubled by that comment."

"It's a compliment." She nodded and gave him the hint of a smile.

"I see Boi's not with you, I can only assume the worst."

Sharpay hung her head sadly. "Yes. He went on to doggy heaven three years ago."

"I'm sorry. I've kinda missed the little guy."

"And I was sorry to hear about Kelsi. Really. Even if I could never understand what you saw in her. I should have been there for you when she was dying, and after."

"I was OK. I _am_ OK. And the last thing Kelsi would have wanted was you around," he added, not without humor.

Sharpay took a long drink. "It's true: high school sentiments die hard. I still sometimes fantasize about getting Troy under my spell." She smiled fiendishly to herself. "Just to see the look on Gabriella's face. I mean, you know I never truly liked him, right Ryan? I wasn't _in love_ with Troy Bolton. It wasn't even really a crush. The most popular boy in school, captain of the basketball team, the boyfriend of my rival…that's all it was ever about."

"Right," Ryan confirmed weakly. It wasn't that he doubted her, it was just a painful subject.

"I wonder where they are now…still together, I should imagine. Swarmed with screaming children. Eking out an existence."

"Yes, they're still together, last I heard. Kelsi kept in touch. Gabriella is doing research, and Troy is teaching."

"Teaching high school?" Sharpay asked, nearly certain she was right.

"What do you think?"

The twins laughed together.

"You didn't go to the reunion?" Ryan asked. "Kelsi and I had to miss it: it was while she was sick."

"Of course not. I've been far too busy. Besides, the only thing better than being able to go back to your high school reunion and show off is being too cool to do it."

"It seems you've also been too busy and too cool to give your brother a call."

"That's a two-way street, _brother_. And I probably wouldn't say this if I hadn't had a steady stream of alcohol down my throat all night, but I think we both know that you've been avoiding me…since high school."

Ryan stroked his cheek thoughtfully. "Why would I do that?"

"Well, when you left me coughing in the dust of your wake, choking on your success, I figured you'd just moved on to better and bigger things. Friends, choreography, girlfriend, Julliard, New York City. I certainly couldn't compete. I wasn't good enough, not for Julliard, and not for you anymore. I assumed you just didn't want to deal with that. Pitying and despising me at the same time must have been difficult. Laughing at me behind my back, choosing those Wildcats over me. Troy didn't want me (Troy didn't even want to sing with me, that bastard stood me up on stage…_twice_! – see, high school still gets to me!), Julliard didn't want me, you didn't want me. I was tossed away like trash. Fabulous trash, but trash nonetheless. I know you pictured me taking over for Ms. Darbus, waving around my degree from the _University of Albuquerque_, the new drama teacher at East High. A self-important wannabe." Ryan could see a frothy bitterness bubbling up from inside of Sharpay and pouring out of her eyes and mouth. The words disgusted her. "But now, I don't know. I guess you just don't like me very much. Well, you chose _them_ over me, and I chose solo over us. "

"So that's how you remember it," Ryan replied, his bitterness matching hers.

"How else is there?" She drank the rest of her glass and placed it back on the counter with a clamor.

He downed his wine: he needed the fortification to be honest with her. "I remember _you_ being the one to kick me out of _your_ show. I remember _you _trying to replace _me_. I remember you only being remorseful because Troy didn't want any part in your dirty, manipulative games. I remember_ never_ getting an apology from you. Mostly, I just remember being used. Used to spy and to steal and to make you look good. But never appreciated. It feels so petty to bring up a couple of shows we did in high school, years and years ago, but you have _no_ idea how broken I was. How betrayed I felt. The nerve of you, to throw _me_ out like trash, and then get in a huff about who I was hanging out with." He took a deep breath. "It's ancient history. And I don't think I want to talk about it anymore."

Sharpay seemed moved, even questioning her own stance on the rupture in their relationship, but instead of rising to apologize or defend herself, she took a deep breath of her own and nodded in agreement.

"Well, are you seeing anyone new?" she prodded conversationally, holding out her glass for more wine.

He poured some out for both of them, pondering the question.

He'd been on a couple of dates with dancers in his productions, but nothing had lasted. Ryan could usually get girls if he felt like it: he knew a couple of tricks that had them falling over him (the same sort of stuff he'd used to get Kelsi the first time they'd gone out, though she'd made easy prey - hardly a challenge), and that was without bringing up his connections in the Industry. In fact, Ryan almost thought he could have had Gabriella that summer before senior year, if he'd really wanted her. He'd come to like her, but not like that. His role in her reconciliation with Troy was a pretty good indicator of his lack of genuine interest. The way he'd liked her best was keeping Troy occupied. "No, not really."

"I get the impression you're kind of a loner these days," Sharpay understated.

"You mean because I was alone, drinking in the dark on Christmas Eve? Whatever gave you that impression?" He smiled humorlessly.

"Why are you so unhappy, Ryan?"

"It's worse than unhappiness: it's nihilism. And regret. But this is far too dark a topic when we're only 45 minutes into our reunion. Let's talk about you: from what I've read and heard there's been a parade of guys through your life. It seems like you're always dating your co-star."

She shrugged. "No guy has been able to hold my attention for very long. Besides, audiences eat that scandal stuff up. You think I'd be in the social columns if my love life was boring? And it always seemed right, somehow, to be 'with' the person I was on stage with. Or vice versa. "

"Yes, I think I understand. So, why aren't you off with one of them? Why come to see me?"

"I think I might finally be drunk enough to confess that to you."

He put his elbows down on the counter and leaned in. "I'm listening."

"I was seeing this guy, Doug."

"Doug Masters?" Ryan interrupted. "Your costar in _Drops of Blood_?"

"That's right. Well, I-I got pregnant."

Ryan lifted his eyebrows. "Pregnant?" He felt sick.

Sharpay's eyes misted over. She nodded and swallowed. "He didn't want it. Or me, anymore. And I was OK with that, really I was. I didn't love him. I'm not sure I even really liked him that much. But I didn't know what to do. And I just kept thinking about how I wished you were around, especially now that Mom and Dad are gone. And how, if you _were_ around, everything would be fine. And I kept picturing that future we used to dream of: our enormous penthouse in New York, with pink carpets and two butlers and side by side his and hers treadmills, and how, if we were living that life, I would've wanted that kid. And I had firmly resolved to call you up, when I miscarried."

Ryan gasped sympathetically. "Shar, I'm so sorry."

"No, I was relieved. Really, I was. I feel the loss right now, in this second, ten times more than I did when it happened. This was five months ago, at the end of July. The doctor told me that I'm fine, that I can still have children. But it just got me thinking about setting down, and family, and future, and things like that. And I realized how much I missed you." She shrugged and sniffled, her warm brown eyes were bloodshot with tears. "That's why I'm here. It took me a while to miss you, because I got so good at imagining you were still around. It was easy: I know your face so well and what you're like; what your suggestions might have been. What would have made you laugh. I deceived myself, so that I didn't sense your absence. But I couldn't do anything about the giant, gaping hole inside of me. And it's only been growing. I don't know, maybe that's why my baby died. I've been suffocating a part of myself. In futility, it would seem."

"It's narcissistic to blame ourselves for the deaths of Kelsi, or your baby. That's just life."

"Well, I'm sure you know by now that I'm an extreme narcissist." She smiled, lightening the mood after her depressing revelation.

Ryan smiled in return. "That's exactly what I meant, Sharpay, when I said 'nihilism'. A nagging emptiness. I thought there was this fork in the road in my past, and I had gone the wrong way, and that my path was set. But if you really feel like this, maybe it's not too late. Maybe this is another fork. I've been plagued this whole time by something; punished, made to feel empty, all because of the one thing I didn't do: I didn't follow my heart. It would've led me straight back to you."

Ryan came around the counter to her and swept her up into a hug. She smelled just the way he remembered: an expensive perfume, and underneath it, candy.

"I'm sorry I've been such a monster to you since you got here," he apologized. "I haven't just been avoiding you since high school: I've been putting up walls to protect myself. The way you hurt me back then, I didn't ever want to go through that again. Mom could tell you how hurt I was. I hung out with the Wildcats that evening, after you told me I was out of the show, and had fun at the baseball game, and enjoyed some really delicious brownies, but then I went back to my room and cried. Balled. It was very unmanly. Made even worse by the fact that I was resting my head in Mom's lap. My revenge was the talent show, it kept me going. I think that's why I've stayed away. How could I partner up with you again, never knowing whether you were always looking for someone better: a better singer, a better dancer, a more successful performer, a higher rung on the ladder…"

She looked up at him, horrified. "I had no idea."

"Well, good. That's the way I wanted it. I wasn't so sharp back then, but I knew what dignity was. And, I didn't leave you behind, Sharpay, when I went off to Julliard. I never doubted for a second that you'd make it on your own merits. I never saw it as abandoning you…just as divergent paths. I can't believe that you would think that I would despise you, or think you weren't good enough, or not want you anymore. And when you became I star, I kept waiting for you to call, but you never did. And then I thought I would be weak, to be the one to give in and make contact. I had to win something."

"Win _something_? What are you talking about? You got into Julliard. I _didn't_, remember?"

"Yeah, but it was a pyrrhic victory. I spent the whole time missing you so fucking much (even when I didn't realize that was what was wrong), that it was drained of all of its triumph." Ryan looked away, embarrassed.

Ryan had been a little oblivious at first, but he remembered his rude awakening. He had been talking to one of his Julliard friends during his second year. One of the favorite past times of Julliard students was to sit around and talk about what they wanted for their futures, what they dreamed of. (Sharpay would have fit right in.) Sometimes it was all they had to hold on to, working as hard as they did, getting pecked at by their teachers, going to audition after audition and never getting a part.

His friend, David, after describing every last detail of his desired three-month vacation in Europe, then asked Ryan: "So, what do you want?"

It had been an easy question for Ryan to answer: "Sharpay, hit by a car, preferably totaling that pink monstrosity of hers; Sharpay minus one of her legs and her voice box; Sharpay washing my dishes, begging me to get her a part in one of my shows…etc."

David had been amused. "Those fantasies are…OK. But they_ are_ allabout Sharpay."

And, of course, David had been right. It had hit Ryan like a bag of bricks. Even when he was furious with her, he was still her poodle.

Sharpay lifted her arms so that they were wrapped around his neck. "Do you still miss me?"

He sighed, and placed his hands on her hips, a little surprised that he was doing it, through it seemed to be, somehow, at her unexpressed insistence. "You know I've been to all of your productions, right?"

She smiled. "I saw you, once. And it made me wonder. It made me happy, Ryan. I almost called then, but you never came to see me, so I chickened out. I thought I was punishing you."

"You were, though we seem to disagree about my transgression."

"The pink roses, they were from you, weren't they?"

He nodded. "How'd you know?"

"I don't know. I just knew."

"I haven't said it yet, but I'm really happy that you're here," Ryan confessed. "I wouldn't want to spend Christmas with anyone but you."

"I feel the same way. That's why I'm here. It's been so lonely without you. Even when I was seeing someone, I always felt alone." At first he thought she was holding on to his neck because she was tired and drunk, but she had begun to stare into his eyes, penetrating them with hers, and he was wildly uncomfortable. "I kept looking at all of these guys I was with, trying to figure out why I wasn't happy, what was wrong with them, but the only flaw I could see was that…they weren't you. Except for Doug," she added.

"Doug was me?" Ryan joked, a defense mechanism.

"No. Doug was a dick. And that was the problem," she continued. "I was - how do you say it? Ruined for men. I'd already experienced perfect happiness in the arms of someone who loved me. Your arms. Your love. Perfection." She closed her eyes, to his relief, and swung playfully from side to side to the music.

She'd reached a new level of inebriation, if her behavior was any indication. Surprisingly, she was a very nice drunk: the alcohol softened her sometimes harsh manner. Drunk Sharpay reminded him a little bit of girl Sharpay, her lost persona. Perhaps she'd gotten so used to being hard that it took a momentary loss of inhibition to find that girl again.

_In his arms?_ "Dancing, you mean?" he asked, supporting her movement, thrilled to be dancing with her again, even such as it was.

"Dancing, and hugging. And who knows what we did in the womb."

Ryan coughed, his eyes waxing, and he disengaged from her quickly. "Sharpay, maybe we should continue this conversation in the morning, when we're soberer."

She continued to dance, eyes closed, standing on her own two feet now. "This conversation will dead-end if we're sober. Do you really want to do that to our lovely conversation, when it's driving along so nicely, past East High, and Julliard, and the tank with plenty of gasoline still in it?"

"All right, say it doesn't dead-end: how would it end otherwise?" he posed.

Her eyelids flew open and her eyes met his instantly. "What do you think?"

His eyes flashed towards his bedroom involuntarily and then back to her.

"Yeah, me too," she stated matter-of-factly.

He blushed, realizing she had interpreted correctly what was on his mind. "We're so damaged," he said, thinking of Kelsi and Sharpay's miscarriage.

"Let's call it all ancient history. Besides, we got bigger problems than that, _brother_."

_Incest?_ He'd gotten over that issue years ago. And that's exactly what he told her. "And given your womb comment, I assume you have too."

She threw her arms up into the air and laughed. "Fabulous! We were never normal, Ryan. Mom should have seen this coming."

"I'm not so sure that she didn't."

"It should have been us all along. But it's going to be us from here on out," she asserted. She framed an imaginary marquee with her fingers: "Ryan and Sharpay Evans! The Dynamic Duo reunited," she announced. He hadn't heard her this excited since high school. "The other stuff we'll keep a secret," she growled, grabbing his belt and pulling him close. "I definitely think it's better they not know just _how_ 'reunited' we are."

He put one hand on her back, the other on her waist, waltzed her around the room for a few spins, then dipped her, and kissed her.

They were made for each other…that was the thing he never felt with Kelsi.

And now, true to his heart, he felt so full he thought he'd burst.


End file.
